Nobody really likes taking kids into hospital. Most of the time it ends up being the teacher who’s got time off, or the last person out of the room! Let’s be honest it’s a crap job that nobody wants. Firstly you have to take at least two kids with you, so you’ve got one injured and one bored. Secondly the wait… there’s no such thing as a fast track in emergency unless you’re not breathing although arguably by this point you’re probably beyond the services available in the emergency ward. Thirdly have you ever been able to get a decent coffee in a hospital?
The trip to hospital all starts when an injury is more serious than your staff can manage. I’ve had all sorts of visits with students, from fractures, to cuts, to unknown issues each visit if often a unique experience…
What happens when Dr Who get’s impolite and angry!
My longest wait was 8 hours and this gave me the opportunity to talk about all sorts of things with the student. It’s amazing what you find out about life the universe and just about everything when chatting!
However, my weirdest experience was when I took one of the kids in with multiple cuts after he took a dive in an bed of oysters. I won’t go into the gory details, but he was a mess to say the least. We sat and waited for some time after seeing the triage nurse, who rifled through the stack of papers which were suppose to be a medical ‘summary’. When the nurse finally brought us in to the examination room, she took one look at him and proceeded to fill a tub with warm water and a dash of disinfectant. She then said to me ‘here you go, take this into the waiting room and clean him up’. I looked at her for a moment wondering if she was serious… Yes she was!
I looked back at her and said ‘can I at least have a pair of gloves’. She half indignantly grabbed me a pair of glove and off we went. I sat there apologising profusely to the couple sitting next to us as I cleaned out the painfully deep wounds and collected a pile of tiny oyster shells as I did. I’ve heard of cut backs but seriously do I get a discount on my Medicare levy for do it yourself work in hospital?
Anyway, we were there about another hour and a half and the boy ended up with stitches in his hand and bandages everywhere.
When you’re on first name basis with the staff here…
To be honest I still try and avoid the hospital trip (mainly because of the bad coffee), but at the end of the day when you’re responsible for the kids welfare and safety, prompt action and quick decision making to get them to hospital can mean the difference between an injury becoming an extremely bad injury. So really it’s always better to err on the side of caution and take them in to be sure, rather than risk it just to avoid a long wait. At the end of the day, you can always get a coffee on the way home!